A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew saw <br />On Carmel prophesying rain, began <br />To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan, <br />Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw <br /> <br />Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat <br />Down the long valley's murmuring pines, and woke <br />The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke <br />Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet. <br /> <br />Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness swept <br />Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam range; <br />A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange, <br />From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped. <br /> <br />One moment, as if challenging the storm, <br />Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel <br />Looked from his watch-tower; then the shadow fell, <br />And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form. <br /> <br />And over all the still unhidden sun, <br />Weaving its light through slant-blown veils of rain, <br />Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain; <br />And, when the tumult and the strife were done, <br /> <br />With one foot on the lake and one on land, <br />Framing within his crescent's tinted streak <br />A far-off picture of the Melvin peak, <br />Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned.<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/storm-on-lake-asquam/
